Tourism Minister K J Alphons today said that the "stories" of India being unsafe for foreign tourists are "exaggerated".
Asked about measures taken by the ministry regarding safety of women tourists, the minister insisted that India is one of the safest countries in the world and cited the Las Vegas shooting incident.
These kind of incidents happen everyday in "all big time" tourist centres across the world, he said.
"I think there are a lot of exaggerated stories about safety but India is one of the safest countries of the world," Alphons said at a press conference to launch Paryatan Parv, a 20-day celebration to promote India as a tourist destination.
The minister referred to the shooting in Las Vegas in the United States on October 2 in which 59 people were killed by a lone gunman at a concert.
"You saw in the US, you see incidents happening in the US everyday and in just one incident 59 people gunned down.
"These kind of incidents happen everyday across the world in all these big time tourist centres, be it Paris be it London. India is one of the safest countries in the world," Alphons reiterated.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 2015, out of 365 cases of crimes against foreigners, 271 cases or 74.2 per cent were registered under crimes against foreign tourists. This is a 29.4 per cent decrease from 2014 when the number stood at 384.
Most of these crimes were reported in Delhi, followed by Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Goa, according to the NCRB data.
Out of the 365 cases of crime against foreigners, maximum cases were reported under thefts accounting for 61.1 per cent, followed by assault on foreign woman with intent to outrage her modesty (23 cases), forgery (15 cases), rape (12 cases), robbery (10 cases) and cheating (9 cases) during 2015.
Alphons said that ensuring the safety and security of foreign tourists was an ongoing process and the ministry's priority is to make everyone feel safe.
"First thing is that we got to believe that we are safe and our country is very safe. First of all we got to believe that," the minister emphasised.
Secretary Tourism Rashmi Verma said that one of the key initiatives of the ministry for ensuring the safety of foreign tourists is the launch of a multilingual helpline, which according to her has "built the confidence of foreign tourists visiting India".
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